That was quite a good week for rebel Remainers. Think about it, with Amber Rudd’s resignation, Tory Brexit rebels have a new Princess Leia to rally around.

Not that Anna Soubry has done a bad job of keeping Euro X-wings flying over the Tory benches but she needs reinforcements.

Rudd – liberated from ministerial office, armed with blueprints from inside the Cabinet Brexit committee and knowing where the bodies are buried – could be a devastating force for the Tory Remain camp.

Plus, she has ambition beyond Brexit. Rudd could still be in the running for the party leadership.

Rudd is generally seen as having carried the can for Theresa May’s time at the Home Office – a department which eats ministerial careers with the efficiency of a Death Star trash compactor.

In time, few people remember why ministers resign and there was a lot of sympathy for Rudd as she put herself about in the cafes of Westminster this week.

Read More

Many Tory MPs will remember how this Tory Cabinet Minister, who talks human, previously carried the can for the debate-phobic Prime Minister last year in a TV election stand-off just two days after losing her father.

Sajid Javid, the bus conductor’s son now in the Cabinet, was a reluctant Remainer siding with the Brexiteers, but is now in a Cabinet which has a majority of Remain-voting ministers.

They’re all Brexiteers now, of course. The realistic prize for Remainers is continued membership of the EU Customs Union in all but name which, regardless of the ranting you will hear, is not Remain in all but name.

The humble ambition to keep tariff-free trade with our biggest trading partner, and the not-so-humble ambition of keeping peace on the island of Ireland, are worth fighting for.

There are those who would die in a ditch to prevent that outcome, and must cynically calculate their supporters wouldn’t mind much if some Irishmen met the same fate as a consequence.

But the 60-strong Tory Research Group have fired their superlaser too early.

Jacob Rees-Mogg’s clone troopers will not pass the reasonable test with the voters.

If they moved against May, she would win and limp on.

So damaged already, her wounds would cauterize before the sabres were wiped clean. All Brexiteers have left are Cabinet resignations.

No one would miss Liam Fox and Ruth Davidson, baby or babies in tow, and would hunt down the rogue male Boris Johnson were he deluded enough to make a leadership bid.

Jacob Rees-Mogg and his hardline Tory cronies turn off most voters (Image: PA)

Read More

For Ruth herself, the timing may not be perfect, though it looks as if life is about to be.

May’s Cabinet committee is divided on which version of Brexit they want but remember their two options for trade – “max fax”, collecting taxes for the EU or a bespoke customs partnership, both allowing the UK to make its own world trade deals – are for the seagulls of Skellig Michael.

Neither are acceptable to the EU, nor the Commons, where the issue looks to be settled for this is a Cabinet which, after two years, has no agreed Brexit policy and only appears to hang together to keep the other lot out.

Serial defeats in the Lords mean MPs vote all over again on retaining the Customs Union.

Preventing Remain Conservative MPs from rebelling once might be achievable but not 10 or 15 times in a row.

A Customs Union, once a humble ambition, is the new hope of the rebel alliance.